Timescale

I faked a letter from the future to my future self

to say something so trivial as: when you lose

ten pounds cut off your hair. If I could really

write my former self a letter from the future

I would say lay down the axe: most of what you hate

you’ll won't ten years from now. Although, knowing

myself, that might just incite her. Hard to say. Fifteen

was really volatile. So were all the other years. 

I’d fear that kid might lay an axe on me, her future

self, for only being me, for being what she feared she was

but couldn’t even whisper to her self. She’d kill me
if I put it here, that dirty word she never once wrote down. 

She’d hate it but she isn't right. Right? She’ll love
who she’ll become, can’t she see? She can't see me.

She’s too busy counting pounds like rosary beads, her ribs
like rungs. She's too busy wringing her hands in fear
that she is what she fears she is (and she is). She is
and she is and she isn't, anymore, me. She's busy
writing letters to her future self, who's busy righting wrongs
she set up for herself in self-destruction. Those letters
always disappointed her, filled with questions that time
had made childish. When I was a child, at times, I thought
that I'd never see twenty five. If that girl met me
what she'd see is the weight I put on. That girl
weighs on me. Fifteen, with something sharp.